WP Bids… Coming Soon!

If you’ve been following my tweets for the past few weeks, you know I’ve been preparing to release a new product, called “WP Bids“. Today I’d like to tell you about what it is, and what’s in store…

WP Bids is a special theme for WordPress, which allows you to create awesome web-based project proposals using the platform we know and love (WordPress).

Who is it for?

It’s perfect for freelancers, design agencies, and other contractors who aquire clients by presenting high-impact proposals, which serve to clearly and professionally outline the project scope, time estimate, price quote, and other relavant info.

It’s especially useful for web designers, because it gives you the ability to tweak and customize your proposals the same way you’d tweak any other WordPress theme.  It’s a self-hosted solution, giving you full control over every detail.

Redefining how we use WordPress

The idea is to use WordPress, not as a public blog available for the world to see, but as a dedicated proposal platform, which you selectively grant access to potential clients.  Let me explain…

You start with a fresh installation of WordPress on your own domain. You might want to designate a sub-domain, like proposals.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com/new-business.  Then, you install the WP Bids theme.

Create a proposal just as you would create a new post in WordPress, except thanks to WordPress 3.0, we use a custom post type called “Proposals”.  The theme takes care of all the formatting to perfectly frame the descriptions, sections, tables, lists, and the like that make up your proposal.

Click publish, then grab the URL or shortlink to the proposal. Email the link to your client for them to review, post feedback (in the form of comments), print a paper copy to show their boss, and review again on their iPhone or iPad.  Hopefully, by this point they have been wowed by the awesome presentation of your web-based proposal that they’re ready to hire you for the project!

A finely tuned feature set

Here are a few of the features to help you create the best proposals possible, quickly and easily:

• Optimized proposals for all web browsers, iPhone, iPad, and other mobile devices, and print version.
• No tricky HTML formatting needed when creating/editing proposals. Use basic WYSIWYG controls found in the WordPress editor (H2, H3, lists, tables, etc.) and the theme takes care of the rest.
• Re-usable templates (this my favorite feature):  Designate one existing proposal to use as a template for future proposals. When you first create a new proposal, it’s pre-populated with all the content from your template. Then it’s just a matter of tweaking a few details and another winning proposal is ready to go!
• Controlled Access: Using built-in WordPress features like admin-only access, and password-protected posts, you can make sure your client sees their proposal, and nothing else.
• Theme Options: Upload your logo, Select a color scheme, Control text labels, and more from the theme options panel.
• Child Themes: Just like any other WordPress theme, you can create your own child themes for WP Bids and make your design completely your own.  In addition to the main theme, we’ll provide a “stripped-down” child theme if you’d like a helpful starting point.

Have a look

Here’s a taste of what a finished proposal could look like:

Pricing

The WP Bids theme will be priced/packaged the same way all of the other ThemeJam themes are.

For $59, you get:

• The WP Bids theme
• 4 built-in color schemes
• Layered Photoshop PSD
• Lifetime access to the customer support forum
• License to use the theme on as many domains as you want.

The nice thing about WP Bids is that unlike similar web-apps, this is a one-time purchase and you own it forever.  Similar web-apps all go with a monthly pricing model, which adds to your bottom line over the long term.

How Soon?

The theme itself is in the final stages of production.  I’m hoping to release it within the next two weeks on themejam.com, with a dedicated site at wpbids.com launched within the next month.

What do you think?

Could you see yourself using WP Bids for your business?  Is my introduction unclear?  I’d appreciate any and all feedback in the comments